Page:The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland from the twelfth to the eighteenth century (1887) - Volume 1.djvu/166

SECOND PERIOD 146 INTRODUCTORY good wall, although few specimens now remain. This court or barmkin was essential to contain the stables and other offices, and gave consider- able additional security by protecting the keep from sudden assault. In some instances these courtyards were of considerable extent, with walls of enceinte, defended with towers, on the same general idea as the thirteenth-century castles above described, although greatly reduced in dimensions, and wanting in the skilful disposition of the towers and curtains for mutual defence. As the country improved, and manners became more refined, buildings providing enlarged accommodation were extended round the inside of the walls of the courtyard, large windows were opened in them, and finally the walls of enceinte became absorbed in the buildings. These gradually dropped their castellated character, and assumed that of a mansion built round a quadrangle, precisely as happened at an earlier period in France and England, and, as we have observed, was the case at Bothwell. This, however, did not occur generally in Scotland till the sixteenth century. But during the fifteenth century we find several of the larger castles designed from the first upon the plan of buildings surrounding a courtyard, as will in due course be pointed out. Throughout the course of the architectural history of Scotland we find the two types of plan above described continuing to prevail together, viz., first, the simple quadrilateral keep or house, sur- rounded by a wall enclosing a courtyard ; and, second, the castle, consisting chiefly of a wall of enceinte, with towers and other buildings connected with it, until in course of time both these types developed into the mansion built round a quadrangle : the keep plan, by adding buildings round the wall of the courtyard ; and the castle plan, by omitting the towers and reducing the wall of enceinte and piercing it with openings, so as to form the outer wall of apartments built round the court. But we shall find that the keep plan, pure and simple, was also much ad- hered to in later times, and formed the model on which many of our mansions (even as late as the seventeenth century) are planned. Examples of the quadrilateral keep of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are very numerous all over the country. As above mentioned, it is difficult to fix the exact date of many of these keeps, but we shall now describe first some of the simple towers or keeps which seem undoubtedly to belong to the fourteenth century. LOCHLEVEN CASTLE, KINROSS-SHIRE. One of the simplest and least altered castles of this period is that of Lochleven. The early history of this castle is almost unknown. In 1335 it was defended by Alan de Vipont against John de Strivilin, who acted for Edward Baliol ; and it is most probable that the existing keep and wall enclosing its courtyard are the buildings which then existed. The